Don't Look Back... Or You'll Be Sorry (2000)

Tung Chi-wah (Dayo Wong) lives out in a rural retreat, happily doing the family routine with his pregnant wife Lisa (Anita Yuen) and two kids. It's a jovial household, right down to renaming the two children each year - last year's monikers Leonardo and Graff change to Nicholas and Faye as the film gathers speed. Indeed, names in the Tung family aren't always straight and narrow - Tung Chi-wah is only tones away from having HKSAR Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's name. And Chi-wah's mother-in-law is called Maelwwe.

After staying in Mauritius for years, Maelwwe (Deannie Ip) returns to Hong Kong. Her presence strikes fear into Chi-wah - it's been that way since she carved a large "X-file scar" in his leg twenty years earlier. Maelwwe moves in (and immediately changes her name to Marianne) and tensions rise around the house - not helped by Chi-wah seeming a little too close to his co-worker at the office.

There's something spooky around the house as all this goes on. Mum-in-law digs up a skull in front of the house and plants a tree in its place after taking the cranium to the crematorium. And after a near-death experience she gains the ability to see spirits. It's just the power she needs to spot the local ghoul that's out for Lisa's body and unborn child. The red-draped spirit had killed herself when pregnant years ago, and now she feels a possession will let her pick up where she left off. With the help of spirits and spot of investigation, Maelwwe sets about saving her daughter from the fate that's closing in fast...

Director Fok's film keeps the light amusement running along, helped along by star Dayo Wong and his intro and outro narration. The cast is amiable enough, except in the poor treatment of their Filipino maid (whose name also changes, of course), with Deannie Ip pleasant in another motherly role after Crying Heart. Nothing stupendous here; just a slow-moving, low-budget ghost comedy quickie with little more than lowbrow aspirations.

The enormous Don't Look Back... Or You'll Be Sorry painted billboard on the side of the Newport Theatre in Jordan. This was the last painted billboard to grace the cinema before it closed at the end of May 2000.

Credits:

Directed by Clarence Ford
Produced by Wong Jing
Starring Dayo Wong, Anita Yuen, Deannie Ip, Emotion Cheung Kam-ching and Ha Ping